Nifty dips for 4th day, Sensex down 300 pts; Trump trade war drags metals, Tata Motors
It was a bad start to the week on Monday after a long weekend. Benchmark indices extended losses for fourth consecutive session despite BJP’s landslide victory in Tripura, falling a percent each on weak Asian cues after US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement raised concerns about a trade war.
The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 394 points intraday but cut some losses in later part of the session after firm Europe trade. The index was down 300.16 points or 0.88 percent to close at 33,746.78 and shed nearly 700 points in four straight sessions.
The 50-share NSE Nifty closed below its crucial level of 10,400, falling 99.50 points or 0.95 percent to 10,358.90.
Midcaps also traded in line with frontliners as the Nifty Midcap was down 1 percent.
“First, local factors viz. banking fraud, mixed macroeconomic data were pushing the markets lower and now the global sentiment has turned sour,” Jayant Manglik, President, Religare Broking said.
“We advise continuing with “sell on rise” approach and focusing more on the stock selection,” he added.
The sell-off by foreign investors in February also dented sentiment. Foreign institutional investors pulled out nearly Rs 12,500 crore from the equity markets during the month.
On the global front, Asian markets ended lower. Hang Seng shed 2.3 percent while Kospi declined 1.13 percent and Nikkei lost 0.66 percent. European markets traded higher, with Germany DAX, France CAC and Britain FTSE rising 0.3-0.7 percent at the time of writing this article.
Back home, all sectoral indices ended in the red barring IT and PSU Bank.
Metals stocks hit hard as the Nifty Metal index lost 3.3 percent after US President Trump’s announcement to impose 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. NMDC, NALCO, Hindalco, JSW Steel, SAIL, Tata Steel and Vedanta were down 2.5-6 percent.
Tata Motors was the biggest loser among Nifty50 stocks, falling 5 percent weak JLR US sales and concerns about increase in US import duty on European cars. Motherson Sumi also fell over 3 percent.
Aurobindo Pharma slipped 3.7 percent on nine observations from the USFDA for Unit 4.
Select technology stocks like TCS (up 2.24 percent) and Tech Mahindra (up 3.10 percent) bucked the trend after Global Analyst Moshe Katri feels 2018 seems to be good year for entire IT space.
Reliance Industries, HDFC, ITC, Yes Bank, HUL, L&T and ONGC among other largecaps were down 1-2.7 percent while Sun Pharma, M&M and UPL gained 1-2.5 percent.
Thomas Cook rallied 5.6 percent as the company’s board on March 1 has given an approval to explore internal corporate restructuring exercise. The move is aimed at enabling the company to focus on travel-related business.
BEML was up 10.5 percent after a CNBC-TV18 report quoting agencies that the Government of India has given an in-principle approval to sell its 26 percent stake in the company.
The market breadth was weak as about three shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.
